Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Sūtrālaṅkāra – 175
His renowned predecessors
Aśvaghoṣa mentions some of his illustrious predecessors and pays
homage to them along with the Sarvāstivādi saṁgha. He invokes
“the bhikṣus Fou-na and Parśava, the masters of the śāstras Mi-tche.”
Sylvain Lévi corrects this translation of Huber’s and brings to light
some of the renowned among Aśvaghoṣa ‘s predecessors. The
Chinese symbols Fou-na might represent the Sanskrit Pūrṇa, the
fuller transcription of which in Chinese is Fou­louna. It frequently
occurs in the name of Pūrṇa Maitrāyaniputra. Further the same
symbols in the same Sūtralaṅkāra serve to transcribe the name, in an
authentic and incontestable manner, of the disciple Pūrṇa (p. 325).
Now Pūrṇa is not an unknown personage. Both the Sanskrit and the
Tibetan tradition regard Pūrṇa as the author of the Dhātukāyapada,
one of the seven classics of the Abhidharma of the Sarvāstivādis.
The work was translated into Chinese by Hiuen-tsiang who attributes
it to Vasumitra, the president of the Council convoked by Kaniṣka
(Takakusu, p. 75, 108). This substitution is significant. For thus Pūrṇa
enters into the group of the doctors patronised by the Indo-Scythian
school. On the other hand, the learned Tibetan Bu-ston mentions
Pūrṇika assisted by Vasumitra and five hundred arhats, at the head
of the redactors of the canon fixed by the Council of Kaniṣka
(Schiefner, p. 298). Pūrṇika is another form of the name Pūrṇa. The
two doctors, therefore, again come in contact. But Wassilieff who
translated this passage from Bu-ston added in parenthesis next after
the name of Pūrṇika: (Parśvika). Sylvain Lévi not having the text of
Bu-ston is unable to state whether Bu-ston or Wassilieff is
responsible for this. However, this time again we [204] we meet
Pūrṇa and Parśva associated as in the Sūtralaṅkāra. Hiuen-tsiang
mentions in Kashmir a convent where Pūrṇa, the master of the